Jakob Dreyer defends his PhD thesis at the Department of Political Science

PHD defence

Candidate

Jakob Dreyer

Title

"Ideals worth sacrificing for? The changing European liberal order in a warring and warming world".

The thesis

The thesis can be loaned from the Royal Danish Library.

Time and venue

Monday 27 May 2024 from 14:00-17:00 at Centre for Health and Society, Øster Farimagsgade 5, DK-1353 Copenhagen K., room 1.1.18. Kindly note that the defence will start precisely at 14:00.

Assessment committee

  • Professor Rebecca Adler Nissen, University of Copenhagen (chair)
  • Professor Tarak Barkawi, Johns Hopkins University
  • Professor Ian Manners, Lund University

Abstract

A series of contemporary predicaments linked to the crisis in the liberal international order, most importantly the war in Ukraine and global warming, challenge the post-Cold War European security order to an unprecedented degree. Contrary to the dominant position in the literature on the crisis of the liberal international order, this thesis finds that the predicaments do alter the European security order, but not in an illiberal direction. On the contrary, the war in Ukraine and global warming have, reinvigorated support for the European liberal project among decision-makers and citizens across Europe. But to tackle the predicaments, European decision-makers are formulating a more sceptical liberal order. Turning the sceptical liberal project into action across policy areas is dilemma-ridden for decision-makers as citizens are increasingly asked to accept personal sacrifices to face up to the challenges. If European decision-makers and citizens are unwilling to make such sacrifices, the sacrifices will be outsourced to other parts of the world and future generations. To make this argument the thesis studies the changing European security order across multiple actor perspectives; the theorist, the soldier, the decision-maker, the citizen, and the victim.